Political freedom

Last updated on 25 February 2017

Political freedom (also known as a political autonomy or political agency) is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies.[1] Political freedom was described as freedom from oppression[2] or coercion,[3] the absence of disabling conditions for an individual and the fulfillment of enabling conditions,[4] or the absence of life conditions of compulsion, e.g. economic compulsion, in a society.[5] Although political freedom is often interpreted negatively as the freedom from unreasonable external constraints on action,[6] it can also refer to the positive exercise of rights, capacities and possibilities for action, and the exercise of social or group rights.[7] The concept can also include freedom from "internal" constraints on political action or speech (e.g. social conformity, consistency, or "inauthentic" behaviour).[8] The concept of political freedom is closely connected with the concepts of civil liberties and human rights, which in democratic societies are usually afforded legal protection from the state.

Views

Various groups along the political spectrum naturally differ on what they believe constitutes "true" political freedom.

Left-wing political philosophy generally couples the notion of freedom with that of positive liberty, or the enabling of a group or individual to determine their own life or realize their own potential. Freedom, in this sense, may include freedom from poverty, starvation, treatable disease, and oppression, as well as freedom from force and coercion, from whomever they may issue.

[T]he use of "liberty" to describe the physical "ability to do what I want", the power to satisfy our wishes, or the extent of the choice of alternatives open to us ... has been deliberately fostered as part of the socialist argument ... the notion of collective power over circumstances has been substituted for that of individual liberty.[9]

Anarcho-socialists see negative and positive liberty as complementary concepts of freedom. Such a view of rights may require utilitarian trade-offs, such as sacrificing the right to the product of one's labor or freedom of association for less racial discrimination or more subsidies for housing. Social anarchists describe the negative liberty-centric view endorsed by capitalism as "selfish freedom".[10]

Anarcho-capitalists see negative rights as a consistent system. Ayn Rand described it as "a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. To such libertarians, positive liberty is contradictory, since so-called “rights” must be traded off against each other, debasing legitimate rights which, by definition, trump other moral considerations. Any alleged "right" which calls for an end result (e.g. housing, education, medical services) produced by people is, in effect, a purported "right" to enslave others.

Some notable philosophers, such as Alasdair MacIntyre, have theorized freedom in terms of our social interdependence with other people.[11]

American Economist Milton Friedman in his book Capitalism and Freedom argues that there are two types of freedom: political freedom and Economic freedom. Friedman asserted that without economic freedom, there cannot be political freedom. This idea was contested by Robin Hahnel in his article "Why the Market Subverts Democracy." Robin Hahnel points out a set of issues with Friedman’s understanding of economic freedom: that there will in fact be infringements on the freedom of others whenever anyone exercises their own economic freedom, and that such infringements can only be avoided if there is a precisely defined property rights system—which Friedman fails to provide or specify directly. [12][13]

According to political philosopher Nikolas Kompridis, the pursuit of freedom in the modern era can be broadly divided into two motivating ideals: freedom as autonomy or independence; and freedom as the ability to cooperatively initiate a new beginning.[14]

Environmentalists often argue that political freedoms should include some constraint on use of ecosystems. They maintain there is no such thing, for instance, as "freedom to pollute" or "freedom to deforest" given that such activities create negative externalities. The popularity of SUVs, golf, and urban sprawl has been used as evidence that some ideas of freedom and ecological conservation can clash. This leads at times to serious confrontations and clashes of values reflected in advertising campaigns, e.g. that of PETA regarding fur.

John Dalberg-Acton stated that "The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities."[16]

Gerald MacCallum spoke of a compromise between positive and negative freedoms. An agent must have full autonomy over themselves. It is triadic in relation to each other, because it is about three things: the agent, the constraints they need to be free from, and the goal they're aspiring to.[17]

History

Hannah Arendt traces freedom's conceptual origins to ancient Greek[1] politics. According to her study, the concept of freedom was historically inseparable from political action. Politics could only be practiced by those who had freed themselves from the necessities of life, so that they could participate in the realm of political affairs. According to Arendt, the concept of freedom became associated with the Christian notion of freedom of the will, or inner freedom, around the 5th century C.E. and since then, freedom as a form of political action has been neglected, even though, as she says, freedom is "the raison d'être of politics."[18]

Arendt says that political freedom is historically opposed to sovereignty or will-power, since in ancient Greece and Rome, the concept of freedom was inseparable from performance, and did not arise as a conflict between the "will" and the "self." Similarly, the idea of freedom as freedom from politics is a notion that developed in modern times. This is opposed to the idea of freedom as the capacity to "begin anew," which Arendt sees as a corollary to the innate human condition of natality, or our nature as "new beginnings and hence beginners."

In Arendt's view, political action is an interruption of automatic process, either natural or historical. The freedom to begin anew is thus an extension of "the freedom to call something into being which did not exist before, which was not given, not even as an object of cognition or imagination, and which therefore, strictly speaking, could not be known."[19]

^Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"; Nikolas Kompridis, "Struggling Over the Meaning of Recognition: A Matter of Identity, Justice or Freedom?" in European Journal of Political Theory July 2007 vol. 6 no. 3 277-289.

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